According to journalist Jon Clements, the police, after delaying its reply for several months alleging the need to consult other “agencies”, replied that it had no obligation whatsoever to explain under which terms any surveillance means were used in the Maddie case, due to reasons of “national security”.

Leicestershire police, which is considered to be England’s 5th best municipal police, further explained to the journalist that it was equally dispensed from replying to him, because the requested explanation could be related to other “security entities”, which, according to the legislation that regulates free access to information, equals several secret service bodies, such as MI5, MI6, GCHG, SOCA or the Special Forces.

Satellite facing Morocco at the moment when Maddie disappeared

Journalist Jon Clements’ “adventure” is not unique, given the fact that in May 2007, only a few days after Maddie disappeared, a top official at the Polícia Judiciária’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in Portimão asked his English colleagues, that had been sent to Praia da Luz, for access to images from the satellites that watch over the Algarve coast.

While the request itself could be seen as normal, as satellite imagery had helped the authorities in solving one or the other more complicated case in the past, the reply was surprising. According to the “experts” that had been sent into Portugal by the British government, at the time when Madeleine McCann was taken from apartment 5A at the Ocean Club, all the satellites were turned towards the coast of Morocco.

An unfortunate “coincidence” that would end up surprising the PJ men when, months later, they saw the same “experts” defending the theory of Madeleine’s abduction into Morocco, supported on the fantasist statements from a Spanish detective agency which, in a public statement, even said it knew who had taken the little girl, why and when, promising that she would return home before Christmas.